China’s Baidu.com Adjusts Alliance Policy, Creates New Client Department

Chinese search engine company Baidu.com has recently adjusted the policies of its Baidu Alliance and will stop business cooperation with some members.

So far, the members affected are mainly non-contracted website navigation sites and the traffic involved is estimated at nearly one million daily visitors.

This policy adjustment is implemented following Baidu Alliance’s evaluation of cooperating partners and the first batch of targets is non-contracted website navigation sites. In the future, the scope of the adjustment may be further expanded. Starting from March 1, 2010, Baidu.com stopped cooperation with these websites.

Cai Hu, general manager of Baidu Alliance, told local media that this policy adjustment does not target a specific industry, as the websites Baidu stopped cooperation with are not high-valued sites, and the only sector affected is its profit-sharing cooperation. In addition, the related websites can continue to provide Baidu’s search engine service to their users.

Apart from the policy adjustment for Baidu Alliance, the Chinese search engine giant recently also announced that it has set up a client department to lead three previous departments, including client software department, client software business department, and Qianqian Music department.

An internal email from Baidu.com shows that the establishment of this new client department aims to improve the development, design, and operation of client products and to enhance the efficiency of team management.